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do you have a lot of snot currently? i'm just recovering from a mild flu so i don't have a lot of it anymore, had more than i knew what to do with last week though. proper thick and gross. though i guess that's better than really thinly running snot that just escapes out of your nose without your knowledge and causes you to lose friends etc. i'm having more phlegm this week, at least it's finally coming out though, last week i nearly died one morning as i was coughing and coughing and it was stuck in my throat and wouldn't come out. death by phlegm, i'm glad i got out of that one

it's a whole different matter if it happens in lectures/social situations though. one time i coughed up a lot of phlegm whilst at work. it was awful. luckily the shop was very quiet that day so i had just to wait for the right moment to sneak out back and spit it out. that sense of panic was quite overwhelming though

"Twenty years ago, Douglas Coupland was at work when he sneezed. It was December, he recalls, and snowing hard, and it was the biggest sneeze he'd ever had in his life. "And there was this thing, like an entity, in my hand – the size, colour and shape of a really big green grape. And I freaked – what the fuck is that? It had veins on it, like it was an evil alien." He went to his doctor, who had a look inside Coupland's nose and said, "Oh well, it's not inside of you any more. It seems all clear up there now."

But what was it? "I don't know. But something got ripped, and after that, well it's been 7,000 sleeps since 1989, and I have to use earplugs every single night. I've never been able to focus sound since then. It's not so much the noise as the directionality of the noise; it's this weird, quirky thing."

I got diagnosed with rhinitis. That was the snottiest I've ever been, I can tell you. I should have bought shares in tissue companies. Everyone at work used joke that I was addicted to cocaine because I was constantly sniffing.

Whatever it is, I've had it about three times. All the snot behind your sinus gets infected and it feels like you've been beaten around the face by your other half. Otherwise known as 'face ache'.

So I have the faceache and I try to ease my blocked nose by blowing out one nostril then the other. Then there is movement...and a line of snot, phlegm and who knows what else proceeds to exit my nasal passages like bunting from a magicians sleeve. I swear this thing had a date of birth.